Google, Microsoft In Epic Hiring War

natecochrane writes "Looking for a new job? Then Google and Microsoft have 6200 roles globally this quarter up for grabs, the first salvos in a costly war for talent. Google alone will hire 6200 engineers, executives and sales staff this year — its biggest intake ever. This story details where the biggest bucks and most fun jobs are to be had and how you can apply for them. There's even a job for an Xbox PR person — fancy being paid to play with toys all day?"

Comments

Positions in Sydney

[belthize]

Drat, I might have applied for one of those network security positions but sadly
a) I don't live in Australia
b) I have no pen testing experience.

I've always just used them on an as needed basis. I guess I could flub my way through an interview extolling the benefits of ball point vs felt tip and maybe make up some interesting war story of the good old days and ink wells. Ultimately I doubt I could penetrate the Australian job market.

And what happens is this

[JamesP]

Google only hires people who lucks out on their broken hiring process (yes, it's not easy for them to come up with an alternative system). Also, internal politics and B.S. starts to take its toll.

Microsoft hires talented people, but it's then hampered by internal bureaucracy

End result, Google tries to go 'social' and fails again. MS releases their 'meh' Zune tablet that plays for sure until next year.

Re:And what happens is this

[TheGratefulNet]

horribly broken hiring process, no kidding!

they admit they have a lot of good people NOT get past the interview. its the worst interview process I've been thru (having been at DEC, cisco, juniper, SGI and many other famous places; I was not able to pass their 'test' the last few times I tried). my resume is almost a carbon copy of the job I interviewed for, too. and I live about 5mi from the place.

I gave up. after trying a few times and doing in-person interviews, they just made it impossible to pass this test unless you are a recent grad (most questions were school questions and NOT industry questions).

if you are young and fresh out of school, it may work for you. if you have many industry years under your belt, you will probably not work out there. also, if they feel you are not able to drink their koolaid, they won't want you.

shame, though. I can't see why they think they are so special to the worldl; but they are FULL of attitude.

Re:And what happens is this

[Bozdune]

Hiring is hard, trust me, I've done it for years. However, I claim that silly little tests and so on are just that: silly. I have turned down senior management positions at companies that think they have some sort of Golden Test that candidates need to pass.

There are really only two things to evaluate: (1) Is the candidate smart? and (2) Can the candidate be effective in the position? The first is easy; anyone can tell within the first few minutes of talking to a person whether that person has the minimum IQ necessary to be successful. The second is tougher, and requires a holistic view of communication skills, motivation, and interest level. Skills are secondary; any competent programmer can learn something new, and my personal experience has been that experienced people who are given the chance to learn something new out-perform people who have been doing the same thing for years.

Re:And what happens is this

[swillden]

Hiring is hard, trust me, I've done it for years. However, I claim that silly little tests and so on are just that: silly. I have turned down senior management positions at companies that think they have some sort of Golden Test that candidates need to pass.

Google doesn't have a "Golden Test". I'll describe Google's process below.

There are really only two things to evaluate: (1) Is the candidate smart? and (2) Can the candidate be effective in the position?

Yes, those are the things you need to figure out, but no, neither of them is very easy to evaluate. Especially not when you set your standards as high as Google does. Your approach to evaluating intelligence is especially flawed -- there are lots of people who can talk the talk, but can't perform when given problems to solve.

Here's Google's interview process (the engineering interview process; I don't know about sales, etc.):

The first step is optional, and depends on various things. It's a phone screen. Usually about one hour long, it involves a series of computer science/algorithms questions, and sometimes includes some coding as well, using a shared editor over the web. This screen has nothing to do with the hire/no-hire decision, it's just a filter to verify that it's not a waste of time to bring the candidate on-site.

The on-site interview takes five hours, each hour an interview by another engineer. One of the five "interviews" is lunch, and it has no effect on the hire/no-hire decision; it's mostly an opportunity for the candidates to ask questions and to talk about Google culture.

Each of the actual interviewers gets to ask whatever questions they like (though with some guidance from HR about what kinds of questions need to be avoided). However, there are some recommendations: Questions should be focused on technical topics that evaluate candidates' problem-solving and coding skills, and at least one coding problem must be included. Google interviewers pay no attention to what you have done in the past, except maybe to break the ice and perhaps as a source of technical topics to discuss. Mostly, they ask serious CS questions, requiring you to design (and implement) algorithms to solve problems, and to evaluate the real and asymptotic efficiency of your solutions, and to discuss issues related to scaling your solutions to Google scale (meaning really, really huge).

Afterwards, each interviewer writes up their thoughts, complete with the code you wrote. They do comment a bit on cultural fit, but unless you're really just impossible to work with (e.g. extremely arrogant) that's unlikely to be a problem. Mostly they discuss your problem-solving approach and ability and your coding ability. Each interviewer also rates you on a scale from 0 to 4, and gives their hire/no-hire recommendation. Google's process minimizes and discourages communication between the interviewers, because they don't want one interviewer with an excessively negative or positive opinion to affect the other interviewers' opinions.

After all reviewers have submitted their feedback, the data is compiled and delivered to a hiring committee (again a group of engineers, perhaps with a manager or two, but mostly engineers -- and Google managers are all engineers, too). Based on that information they have to come to a consensus decision to hire, reject or request more interviews (the latter is rare). Candidates who are rejected are not allowed to interview again for six months.

In rare cases, the decision of this hiring committee may be overridden by another, higher-level committee.

At all levels, the direction given to interviewers and committee members is to lean towards rejection. False negatives are perceived as less painful to the company than false positives, so the process is negatively biased.

Is the system perfect? Clearly not, and Google recognizes that and is constantly looking for ways to improve it. I'm not sure how muc

Epic?

[drej]

Is it really necessary to refer to EVERYTHING as "epic"?

The Down Side

[Soong]

The down side is that you may wind up in a mediocre soul-sucking job in a giant corporation. Both companies have a few glitzy positions, but unless you come in as a rock star, those positions aren't for you - they're for people with seniority who got in 5-10 years ago. You might get lucky and play office politics and hitch a ride on someone's rising star. You might get unlucky and get backwater projects that nobody cares about but nobody has the cajones to properly cancel.
</bitter>

Re:The Down Side

[ethanms]

You might get unlucky and get backwater projects that nobody cares about but nobody has the cajones to properly cancel.

One man's trash is another man's treasure...... you're describing my dream job! Low pressure, job security... yes please! :)

Don't want them

[1s44c]

Google blindly assumes everyone wants to work for Google. They are dead wrong. So they have 20% time? Big F-ing deal, I work for myself and would not have it any other way.

It reminds me of the way a lot of American's are utterly convinced that everyone wants to move to America.

Re:numbers??

[kmdrtako]

Well, let me spell it out for you–

Google + Microsoft = 6200 this quarter.

Google = 6200 this year ~== 1550 per quarter.

Which might suggest that Microsoft will hire the other 4550 this quarter.

Does that help?

(No, I'm not the AC that called you a f*cking idiot.)

Re:numbers??

[shortscruffydave]

I acknowledge that I failed to interpret the numbers correctly, and thank those who provided clarification. In particular, I thank those who did so without use of insult or obscenity.

Slashdot article a year from now,

[circletimessquare]

after the social web stock market crash of 2012, aka, the twitpocalypse/ the facebpalm:

"Google, Microsoft announce record layoffs"

Re:Yea.. not a big deal

[Mongoose Disciple]

But not necessarily qualified people.

At least in my market, solid technical people aren't hurting for work. YMMV.

Don't do it

[aaaaaaargh!]

Look at Austin Meyers, he wrote the X-Plane flight simulator, beat Microsoft at it, and made millions of dollars. If you're smart, start your own business. It's not less work but you'll be your own boss and can choose your own work time and pace. In any case don't go for big stock market companies, they might sack you any time, managers will boss you around, the company gets all the copyright and credits, and it might get sold out at any time (see e.g. Sun).

and yet we defeated hitler

[decora]

by taking ordinary people, and asking them do extraordinary things

i wonder, if modern corporate douchebags had been in charge of wwii, would we have ever stormed the beach at normandy ? or would they sit around with their thumb up their ass for 5 years waiting for 'good soldiers' to apply to the army.

Re:also known as 'age discrimination' laundering

[j_l_larson]

I was doing well on a phone interview with Google until I casually revealed that CS was my second career (e.g. I'm "old"). The interviewer almost hung up on me right then, and scrambled to end the call quickly. If you happen to go to their campus, you'll be hard pressed to find any bald heads or silver hair anywhere. The vast majority of them are under 30, seriously.